Why Study History?
“To study history is to study change: historians are experts in examining and interpreting human identities and transformations of societies and civilizations over time. They use a range of methods and analytical tools to answer questions about the past and to reconstruct the diversity of past human experience: how profoundly people have differed in their ideas, institutions, and cultural practices; how widely their experiences have varied by time and place, and the ways they have struggled while inhabiting a shared world. Historians use a wide range of sources to weave individual lives and collective actions into narratives that bring critical perspectives on both our past and our present. Studying history helps us understand and grapple with complex questions and dilemmas by examining how the past has shaped (and continues to shape) global, national, and local relationships between societies and people.” - University of Wisconsin
University of Wisconsin:
The Past Teaches Us About the Present
History Builds Empathy Through Studying the Lives and Struggles of Others
History Can Be Intensely Personal
“Doing” History is Like Completing a Puzzle or Solving a Mystery
Everything Has a History
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago offers comprehensive training in the discipline, with emphasize the following areas:
—The Scientific Revolution and science in the Romantic period
—Biology and evolutionary theory, Renaissance–present
—Psychology and psychiatry, 17th century—present
—The book and communication technologies, 17th century–present
—Medicine, 16th century–present
—Statistics and probability theory, 18th century–present
—Technologies of truth
—Theories of sexuality
—Philosophy of history
American Historical Association
The American Historical Association is — the largest professional organization serving historians in all fields and all professions. The AHA is a trusted voice advocating for history education, the professional work of historians, and the critical role of historical thinking in public life.
Why study history? The answer is because we virtually must, to gain access to the laboratory of human experience. When we study it reasonably well, and so acquire some usable habits of mind, as well as some basic data about the forces that affect our own lives, we emerge with relevant skills and an enhanced capacity for informed citizenship, critical thinking, and simple awareness. The uses of history are varied. Studying history can help us develop some literally “salable” skills, but its study must not be pinned down to the narrowest utilitarianism. Some history—that confined to personal recollections about changes and continuities in the immediate environment—is essential to function beyond childhood. Some history depends on personal taste, where one finds beauty, the joy of discovery, or intellectual challenge. Between the inescapable minimum and the pleasure of deep commitment comes the history that, through cumulative skill in interpreting the unfolding human record, provides a real grasp of how the world works.— Peter Stearns